The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to correlation-enhanced frequency scanning.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include fourth generation (4G) systems such as a Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) systems, and fifth generation (5G) systems which may be referred to as New Radio (NR) systems. These systems may employ technologies such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), or discrete Fourier transform-spread-OFDM (DFT-S-OFDM). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or network access nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
Prior to attempting to establish a connection with a base station, a UE may perform a frequency scan (FSCAN) operation to identify candidate frequency channels for establishing a connection. According to certain legacy FSCAN operations, a UE may return 30 candidate frequency channels for each frequency band it scans. However, a UE may spend approximately 40 milliseconds on each candidate frequency channel for initial acquisition of any cell in that frequency band. In frequency bands that are not being used for active communications by a cell (e.g., an empty frequency band), an FSCAN operation may waste up to 1.2 seconds while attempting to identify candidate frequency channels within the empty frequency band.